


Super Trouper

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Bad Jokes, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Crack, Friendship, Gen, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Time Travel, up until the very end anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:48:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23072716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: Ibuki comes into possession of a time machine. As she prepares to head off into the past on asuper-secret important personal mission, Hajime comes to see her off.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime & Mioda Ibuki
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Super Trouper

“ _This is ground controooooool to Major Ibuki! You’ve really made the graaaaaaaaade…_ ”

...She wasn’t even going to space.

...God, Hajime wished he knew why his mind was going there at all, looking at her through the still-open side door of the many-plated steel-and-glass capsule, where she sat singing to herself and knocking the heels of her sneakers back against the base of… what _was_ , albeit, a very spacy-looking chair.

In front of a very, very spacy-looking console. A veritable checkerboard of yellow-and-white buttons flashed in patterns. One. Two. One. Three.

He feared what’d happen if she started pressing them out of curiosity.

And by if, he had a good ol’ bottom-of-the-stomach gnawing feeling that he should actually mean _once_.

As if there wasn’t enough… cause for dread and concern, anyway.

Hajime’s lips thinned and brow furrowed deeply as he swallowed - stepped up to the doorway and took the lightest, most tentative grip, nothing but curling fingers, around the handle; dropped his head to the side in a vague interrogative cocking, wavered out a rough-yet-willowy “...Uuuuuhh…”

And she sat straight up, meerkat-style, blinking her eyes wide with a little mouthing of “oh?” She put her hand up over her eyes like a visor. Looked at the wall opposite him.

He waited.

When she scanned back to him, that little “oh” popped open to a great big D-shaped grin. “Hajimeeeeeeeee!” A wink; he saw the tip of her tongue probe the space between her upper teeth and her inner cheek. _Cheekily_ , fittingly enough. “Are you here to give Ibuki a special and super-important memento of home before she sets off on her big voyage back in time? Like a heart necklace, or a spinning top?”

Neither of those things had _anything_ to do with time travel.

And once again, _god_ , what was he _thinking_ , letting these things trip him up when there was an _actual point_ …

“... _Why_ do you wanna travel back in time, again?” he asked. Felt his eyes going round.

Ibuki cackled. There was a little bit of a snort in there.

Hajime’s mouth bent into a faint frown.

_Don’t laugh now, Ibuki - this is… I’m pretty sure this is a serious and important question._

“A tiny Pomeranian dog watching its owner whip out a lighter while shaking up an aerosol can - _that’s_ what you look like right now!” she crowed, as Hajime’s brow furrowed just a tad deeper. Eyebrow arching. “You don’t gotta worry about little old Ibuki! Do you think Kazuichi would have put so much power into her hands by building her a fully-working, real-life time machine if she hadn’t told him it was for a _very_ important cause?”

If she didn’t _tell_ him it was for an important cause.

 _Tell_ him.

...Somehow the wording seemed, ironically, _telling_.

Hajime shut his eyes for a second. Considering.

“... -- I mean, I wouldn’t _know_ ,” he said. Just a bit more emphatic. Almost imperceptibly slower. “But… traveling through time seems like it could be dangerous.”

In a couple of fluttery blinks, Ibuki’s expression went neutral. A just-wide-eyed and not-unhappily-unsmiling listening interest.

“I’d rather know what it is you’re up to,” he continued, “that you’re doing something this… _big_ for. As your friend, and classmate.”

A couple more blinks - little shutter-flicks as the set of her face adjusted further.

A small hardness or, rather, _solidness_ settling into the corners of her mouth, the space between her slim eyebrows.

And a steadiness to the look in her eyes.

She was serious.

Hajime was grateful.

“...Ibuki has to go back in time,” she said. Just as steadily as the pace he’d moved to.

He nodded once. Understandingly. Go on…

“...travel to Sweden…”

\-- A pause.

Sweden.

A twitch of a deeper knit in his brow. Why _Sweden_.

… -- A couple more nods, a little faster and harder. _Okay, and…?_

“...and join ABBA,” Ibuki finished.

Hajime’s mind… steadily, steadily and yet all-too-at-once began to clear to blank. His mouth hung open slightly. Something in his chest beginning to tense.

It was, in fact, a _what_ that he was trying not to breathe out. Restraining himself.

He tried mouthing one thing - an “I” or a “why”. He rethought it as he did - biting his lip, unbiting it, taking a breath, prepping and instead saying, “...The disco group?”

He couldn’t help the… twist of incredulity it carried from getting into it.

And Ibuki smiled like a child who’d been asked by a gasping kindergarten teacher if she’d _made this macaroni picture all by herself_ , nodding her head twice, hard, tossing hair everywhere.

Hajime wondered, in the back of his head, if he should have anticipated this girl’s genre of choice. Everything she _did_ with her head made it look like she was _banging_ it.

“Ding ding ding ding ding ding!” Her _smile_ set and stretched into the grin of _utter relax-and-leave-it-up-to-me confidence_. She crossed her arms for good measure. “Now, I know what you’re thinking, they may not be Ibuki’s usual genre, but there are times we all need to adapt for the greater good! And what kind of Ultimate Musician would Ibuki be if she couldn’t handle a little bit of genre-bending? A layman like Hajime would be shocked at how well heavy metal can go with disco!”

“But… _why?!_ ”

“Huh?” Ibuki looked up in a wide-eyed flash. Tilted her head. “Are you asking Ibuki to give you a lecture on genre theory?”

“ -- No, I mean -- “ Hajime bit his teeth for a moment - wincing as he shook his head, put his hands up, _c’mon, slow down…_ “...What’s so important about you joining _ABBA?_ ”

Something about Ibuki slanted. He couldn’t tell if it was her tipping in place, or the line of her mouth slanting.

“What are you _really_ even doing all of this for?”

Ibuki’s face had gone openly neutral again.

Subconsciously, he took it as a cue - an opportunity.

He put on that _Pomeranian face_ again.

_Please. I really am concerned._

Ibuki smiled again.

And it was… warm.

Big and optimistic but soft-eyed.

And likewise, she was soft-toned when she said, “...You’ll see, all right?”

The lids of Hajime’s eyes lowered. 

“It’s gonna be really good… I promise!”

Lowered further.

It didn’t… help.

But he wasn’t going to get any further than that. He knew.

And -- holding a breath in through his nose in the top and back of his throat, wondering what… words he should put it towards -- he…

...Accepted it.

“...Okay,” he said, the… quick-fall after the breath-hold causing his words to… ride out on a sigh. Rueful. “I trust you.”

Ibuki’s head lowered slightly.

Under her bangs, he thought he detected just a hint more of rue, too.

But when it came back up, with a couple of shakes-out of her head, there was that can-do grin. Strong and sharp and back-again. “...Right!” she said. Hard nod. “Ibuki is nothing if not trustworthy… which means you don’t have to worry one teensy bit! She’ll see you in the future, she promises… but the future will be now when she’s back being a dancing queen! So she bets after she gets this thing going, you’ll see her again in, like… thirty seconds, tops! So you won’t even have _time_ to worry!”

...She… had an interesting point…

He… took one step back from the capsule. Just one.

Fingers still loosely hooked around the door’s handle grip.

Ibuki had bounced right back into her… whole gung-ho starting energy. She smiled bright and with teeth; she wiggled in the seat; she waved hard and fast.

“See you on the other side, okay?” Nice and colorful and melodic and bright. She winked.

Hajime softly huffed a breath out through teeth held together in a -- quasi-rictus of a smile. One part polite, and one part _God, what am I doing._

_Why am I letting this happen._

“Right…” he said. Just a little too stiff, a little too thick, a little too… tight-bound. “...See you… soon.”

Ended almost somber.

“ _Readyyyyyyyy foooooooor liftoooooooooooff!_ ” Ibuki yelled, swinging forward to face the console again, head high and fist in the air.

Hajime gulped. Felt the beats of his heart hitting too hard - concentrated force from small-but-firm hammers. Took another step back. Not blinking - eyes pinned on Ibuki.

“ _Oooooooooooooone… twoooooooooooooooo…?_ ”

…

_...Three._

He shut his eyes and flung momentum into a swing of the arm holding the handle grip. The door heavily swung closed.

_BAM._

A noise began to roar at the base of the machine. Initiation _beep-beep-beep-beeps_ from within.

Hajime wandered backward a few more steps. A few more. Arms just-out at his sides with some sort of _brace yourself to act_. Eyes huge and locked on the capsule.

As the roaring loudened and the grass around and between him and it started to sway in spiraling currents of rushing air, the machine glowed. A just-yellow starry light.

It brightened - he flinched at a little sear in his eyes; squinted and continued to try to keep his eyes on it between raised and shielding forearms.

Brighter. **_Louder._ **

His teeth clenched tight. He braced his weight and stance downward… _Brighter…_ **_Louder…!_ **

**_...Wham._ **

He shut his eyes against an eruption of light that burned spots into them through the lids anyway as a sonic boom exploded into his ears, slammed up against his whole body and nearly knocked him off his feet; he felt his insides leap without the rest of him - heart pulsating from the shock.

Was it over…?

...Tentatively, tentatively, he began… straightening out his stance again. One foot at a time. Re-shifting and re-balancing his weight. Blinking the stars out of his vision till he knew he could handle the sun before lowering his arms.

A couple more blinks as if groggy as his back… finally straightened, and his face finally turned forward.

The place where the machine and Ibuki had been was empty.

And in millions of places around the world, millions of little things had changed.

**Author's Note:**

> I could not stop thinking about this.


End file.
